I did my first house call as of today from a being in business perspective. I've done some odd jobs in the past for cheap and just to be a help mainly. Though doing this professionally I realize I have a lot to learn on the business side. This past Sunday a guy came to my full-time job to purchase anti-virus software. He explained to me his problem, he had a Trojan that basically blocked all .exe files being ran. I told him the software that he had would not be able to help him as he was already infected. Then he asked me what would, well I of course offered my services. Told him I would come by for $50 before my shift at work and clean his system and get him protected. So I go over there and start to get work on the system he had told me about. As I am running the cleaner for the particular Trojan. He pops a question about his laptop because ever since two weeks ago he said it started shutting down on it's own.
So I booted it up, as soon as it got to the welcome screen a dialogue about his registry popped up and powered down almost immediately, so I restarted the computer and was focused on the screen to get the dialogue. It said it had recovered the error and replaced the registry with a back up. So it got to windows this time powered down. It had been asking for the chkdsk the whole time finally let it run, powered down. So I popped in a bootable live Linux distro, I have with a hard drive scanner. It rebooted during the middle of it's start up. So I felt the bottom of the laptop and for the time it had been running the corner was extremely warm. Well to just get to the point the guy had let his granddaughter play on the computer and set the laptop on a piece of paper towel and was blocking the intake fan and it finally ran the chkdsk successfully and ran for 2 hours solid downloading files, checking e-mails, and surfing. So I fixed his computer, and basically told him to keep his desk clean. He was a happy customer, and at this point I'm thinking heck yea, this is cool.
Then he is like so how much do I owe you. I told him $50, and it goes downhill. He's like everything you used, you downloaded for free (yes legal freeware) and I could have done it myself. I asked him why he didn't do it his self. He said fine, and told me that his wife was supposed to be back by now. He's like well I'll bring it to you at your job tonight. I told him to give me 10 at least right now because I got to get to work and ran my gas out to like nothing. He gave that to me and said he would bring the rest later. I said ok sounds good and left. This was at 3:30ish, so at 8:30 I called to see if he forgot. Apparently his wife was still "out". He said I'll bring it to you tomorrow. I don't have to work tomorrow or the next day, so we scheduled the payment for Friday. I'm hoping his wife gets back before Friday.
So I got a few questions in some areas. If a customer approaches you for a particular problem and you go to their house how do you keep them on line. Like if that laptop problem wouldn't have been so simple that could have been some valuable time lost. I know in the past when I did these jobs for kicks and pretty much gas money, I'd be looking at anything from their car radio to the clock on their microwave while their computer does whatever. How do you do payments with residential customers? Because I have a feeling that I just screwed on my first call.
Though I did learn some things. I learned not to judge the book by the cover. When I pulled up to his house I will say I was rather impressed. Then I walked in the computer room (that he called the war room) and seen the dual 28" HDTV as monitors with the stock ticker software just a ticking away on the second screen and the terabyte worth of drives in his system and quad core processor. I was like oh well at least I don't have to worry about him trying to skip out on the bill. Okay that is pretty much the only thing I learned but I think it is very valuable lesson nonetheless.
I was really hoping this guy was going to be a good client. He's in a nice neighborhood (was thinking if he started talking about me to his neighbors), he was interested in me building him a Linux box, so he could play with it. Was also interested in getting a third monitor for his PC. I was thinking oh this is good repeat business. So anyways if this guy does end up paying me. Should I take anymore work from him? Should I tell him I need payments upfront? I'm worried I'll get more bad business from him. Should I treat people that he refers to me with the payment upfront policy as well. Or should I just stay away from anything that has to do with this guy. I hate to be a whiner but this is really confusing, disappointing and discouraging.
P.S. I promise I won't make a book about every house call I have in the future.
the use of the word "too" is equivalent to the word "also" and it's used in your thread like 20 times. It was kind of annoying reading. Again, please do not take this as a flame.
